When I first heard about Google offering something called "Google Classroom," I was instantly intrigued. Since the entire district has gone "Google," I knew that the transition to this new format had the potential to be very easy. Even though it did not become available to us until after school had already started, my students had no problem transitioning into this new program once they had it available to them.
Google Classroom has helped me transform how I teach. My tasks for each class period look drastically different than they did before. For students' warm ups, they get a laptop, log-in to classroom, and start writing on the question of the day. They know exactly how Classroom works, and they ask very few questions. Everything they write is turned in through Classroom, and students are starting to post questions for the rest of the class in the Classroom as well. It is so exciting to see them learning and connecting with each other on English topics!
I have found that this year, more and more students are not on Twitter. I have been tweeting questions for my classes periodically, but only a few actually see them, and only a handful even have a Twitter handle. I have started using Google Classroom in the same way as I used Twitter last year. I think students like that everything they need for my class is in one spot.
There is so much potential with this site. I'm excited to explore more ways to utilize it in my classroom.
Oh, and if you want some really fun writing prompts to use in your classroom, I have included a link to it below. Even though it's written for high school students, middle school students can benefit from these as well. Enjoy.
http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/post/32343377489/the-180-prompts-i-actually-use
Happy Thursday!
- L
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